Ok – So i have purchased myself some H Bars – as wanted to try to change my riding position to make it more comfortable. At present I am commuting on a home built (first time from scratch) Kinesis XC120 built up into a 700c/28er hybrid… It works trust me!

My dilemma is which set of shifters / brake levers to use. At present I have a good set of XT dual controls which work fine. Apart from a bit of tinkering with cable lengths they will transfer fine. My other option is a pair of newly purchased (from here) XT shifters and a pair of Juicy 4's from my FS bike that are no longer required. However they dont seem to fit so well and im not sure whether to put the shifters inside the brakes or outside…?

Alongside this was wondering regards the XT shifters – the mounting brackets are removable and seem as though they could be swapped but unfortunatley they dont tally up – am i missing something here – can they be swapped over (they would then reach better underneath the brake levers)

Ok this may be the ramblings of someone who hasnt a clue however I would like this to work as planning on doing a lot more riding on this bike…

All advice (appropriate) appreciated!

XT levers don't play well on the H Bar.

Either use flappy XT shifters or Pauls Component adaptors and your choice of barend shifters.

Shimano dual control shifters work best with H bars – have some old style XTR M960 dual control shifters on mine – I used to have X9 shifters with Juicy 7 levers- whilst this was serviceable, the dual control is much better – it allows for more hand positions and is generally easier to use.

Dual controls on H bars here.
I likee very much.
Info of Jeffs site here
http://www.jonesbikes.com/h-bar.html

those bars seem ill thought out with respect to shifters and levers etc.

No, they just prioritise the comfort and control of the bar over shifter compatibility, leaving you with a reduced range of shifter options. At least 86.3% of users ride singlespeeds anyway. 😉